Iraqi Civil war.

well it aint good is it? They've (the big powers' ruling classes) killed millions of Iraqis over the past two decades.

Thye also clearly have no interest in rebuilkdign any infrastructure in Iraq beyond prisons and are building military bases faster than you can say artificially-created-Sunni-sectarian-attacks.

They have also shown the left up to be way off the mark. if you remember the SSP's line (like most of the left) was that the war was going to be about oil.

Sheridan said about ten million times stuff along the lines of

Brothers and Sisters,

This war is about OIL! They're no interested in weapons. They couldn't care less about Saddam... They put him in power! They want to take the oil.

As it happens they haven't taken the oil. They've just left it sitting there in the ground and have built miltary bases everywhere.

I read your post and I just exclaimed "FINALLY!" - I have been saying for 3 years now that this war was a land grab for new air bases. From the BBC web site, via Google:

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/820515.stm

For a possibly complicated set of reasons, we (US) didn't want to deal with the Saudis any more, but we (US) for less complicated reasons absolutely require a massive on-the-ground military presence in the region. None of my (admittedly fairly, ah, shall we say, uneducated) associates would listen to me at all - everyone completely bought the left's screams of "No Blood For Oil".

The other thing this giant red herring more directly obscured was that not only were we not there to pilliage the oil wealth of Iraq, it's in a way the opposite - this was a way to export BILLIONS of dollars of American public funds directly into the pockets of the robber barons who build the bases and prisons. People seem to forget that Halliburton has a fast growing amount of experience building domestic prisons here in the US.

Ref: http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77

Ref: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12427

Ref: http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1998/brsnws_120298.jsp

(That last one is interesting - straight from the horse's mouth: "Halliburton Business Unit Continues to Perform in Downturn of Oil And Gas Market", Press Release, December 1998)

What really makes me ill is that if the "regime change" had gone off as the thieves naively thought it would, the left would still see it as an unfair exploitation of Iraq's oil wealth, relegating it to an international business matter. Perhaps the liars would have even made a show of spreading that wealth to the locals (if only they'd behaved!), even quashing that noise from the anti-war liberals. Sickeningly, it has taken thousands and thousands of deaths, the exposure of American atrocities like political prisons in two countries, etc. for people to start realizing that it's deeper than just a greedy swipe at the oil.

While I am personally "happy" to see others recognizing that this was a more deeply insidious and cynical move than generally acknowledged, this is on freakin' libcom - I don't see Wolf Blitzer analyzing the US ultimate motives on prime time any time soon.

astro

quite altho the fact that the oil remains in Iraq largely undeveloped and unexploited is major power play.

The US doesn't need oil from Iraq. It's domestic needs are already catered for. The EU and China, both of whom were involved in major oil deals in Iraq just prior to the invasion however have a supply problem.

At a time of ever rising oil prices and post peak oil failure to meet demand having a huge war chest like Iraq is great leverage.

They're in there for the long haul.

I always thought the invasion had alot to do with retaining a strong powerbase in the Middle East for the US to help and 'protect' Israel. Also US troops can be pulled out, slowly, from Saudi Arabia, thus apeasing any nationalistic Arab feelings towards American troops being in the Holy Land and put into Iraq.

Iran- one of the biggest threats, at least in word terms, to Israel is bang next door to Iraq, Bush is alreay bleating about invading it (I said this a year ago), Iran saw how Saddam fell, they do not have the power to wage a full out war on the US and its allies, namely Britain, so Iraq is a good base to keep Iran in line, and threaten it when it does get out of line.

Edit- I noticed in the above post how you mentioned the US has a large stock pile of oil in reserve, I remember a good few years back my GCSE science teacher telling me there is a large enough supply for the US outside of Iraq. But still, if America occupies a large oil producing country, they can also keep a grip on the other oil producing countries. Arab countries in the Middle East arn't that united, they either fly around and hug the US or they oppose it. I do not feel that oil was the biggest factor in the invasion, but it was a factor, but I don't see all this stuff you get on SWP banners of blood/ oil etc. It was more in-depth then oil.

Surely the war was all about oil. The reason the middle east has any significance in the global scheme of things is due to it large oil reserves.

What are the US military bases in Iraq for if not for controlling oil? Wahy is the US interested in keeping Iran in line? Surely the main problem they have with Iran is the fact it exports most of its oil to China and Japan.

Currently the USA has enough oil in America eg Canada Mexico Venuzwala aswell as USA. However if it manages to control other peoples oil supply it would be more powerful.

I agree with Dom, apart from the Suez Canal and oil I can't see what the major significance of the area is.

Although the Zionists seem to have a fairly powerful lobby in America, it is not siply ideological. America likes to have an Ally. Israel is wavering, Saudi is on the verge of a revolution. Iraq was the logical choice.

I personally think that the Iranian government is perhaps overplaying its hand in the current nuclear spat but I really don't think the Americans can stop them. Israel doesn't have the nerve either, not this time.

The war wasen't soley to do with oil. Oil is an ideological tool anyway in such a volitle region as the Middle East, but there is also a large religious influence as well. The US military bases are in the ME to keep an ideological control, Dom america has an interest in keeping Iran in line, Iran is not only a rallying point for specific sections of radical Islamists, its also a threat to Israel. Israel is the US's batton in the ME.

I think it’s positive that a number of posts on this thread have put into question the simplistic leftist argument about the invasion of Iraq (and virtually everything the US does in the Middle East) as a ‘war for oil’. In this logic, the real enemy is reduced to the big oil companies who have supposedly hi-jacked US democracy in order to make a quick buck in the Middle East. In fact, from a strictly economic point of view, the invasion of Iraq makes little sense – it is becoming a huge drain on the US economy. The fundamental concerns of the US – of the US capitalist state, to which the big US companies are ultimately subordinate – are strategic and military. Control of oil is basically a military aim, and as has already been pointed out, the main importance of Middle East oil for the US is that they want to be able to shut it off from other powers when they need to. In other words, the USA’s actions in the Middle East have to be understood in terms of the USA’s efforts to maintain global hegemony and prevent any of its major imperialist rivals (Germany, France, Russia, etc) from posing a threat to this.

Understanding the system’s logic of war on this global scale is not just a matter of abstract analysis. It’s also the basis for opposing the ideological mystifications peddled by the left wing of capital – which can easily combine pacifist illusions with outright support for the USA’s imperialist rivals. This was illustrated very clearly in 2003 with the idea that we should support France and Germany because they are ‘against the war’. In fact, they were ‘against the war’ because they understood that the US invasion was ultimately directed against them. The slogan of ‘support the resistance’ also boils down to the same thing, because the resistance is not autonomous but acts in concert with other imperialisms. Although the direct support is coming from lesser powers like Iran and Syria, America’s rivals have a lot to gain from seeing the US getting bogged down in Iraq, and are certainly involved in all sorts of behind the scenes manoeuvres with countries like Iran, aimed at increasing their influence and obstructing the plans of the US.

Alf I am at a loss to see what your post actually says.

The war was basically for oil, whether the aim was to take it of to prevent others from having it (which I would include in "taking it") or to actually take it immediately.

My point is that oil is only one element of the situation, and the issue is certainly not one of oil profits for the greedy Texas oil barons. The USA clearly wants a permanent military presence throughout the region, not just in Iraq, but in the 'Five Stans', etc. Control of this region has been a key geo-strategic aim of the major imperialist powers long before oil was important. The USA's ultimate aim is the encirclement of Russia and Europe - the strategy that led to the collapse of the USSR - and to be able to exert its control over Pakistan, India, etc. In other words, what the Project for the New American Century calls 'Full Spectrum Dominance'. This project is deeply irrational and ultimately unrealisable, and creates a huge swathe of chaos in its wake - but this will not hold back the attempt to pursue it.

Why, if not for Suez?

There are easier ways to encircle Europe

Israel is largely now growing irrelevant to the US in the region; their role is largely played up by an antisemitic left. I'm sure Israel (the Israeli ruling class) would love to remain the right hand of the US for its own nationalistic purposes, but having seen requesting funding denied and the huge increase in US troops in the region they remain only significant due to the cock up of Shi-ite supremacy in Iraq and the problems this would cause for a US invasion there.

Spot on big chap! I'm sure comrade anarchoal will probably come in with a more coherent response than this but having Iran as a US satrapy or client state makes a lot of sense geopolitically, way beyond the natural gas reserves and oil. This is all the more relevant given the way Russia has reasserted itself in the former regions of its empire, lost to Euro-American influence under Yeltsin. At present the sphere of Russian and Chinese influence in this region now extends to Iran. That must be worrying policy makers in the US.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was an attack on European foreign investment there, and must also be understood (just as the current crisis in Iran must be) in terms of the Euro versus the Dollar in the sale of oil and gas.

I tend to agree with Alf as well on this one. The American ruling class is being psychopathic and if they took a step back from it all they'd see their hegemony being eroded and challenged in Latin America, their productive capacity as an economy still totally uncompetitive, and they'd see massively mounting debt which they can't keep defaulting on forever, as their sole means of shoring up their economy, the dollar trading system, is eroded steadily by the progress of the Euro.

Meanwhile Britain should watch out too as much of the capital for these poncy new houses being erected everywhere is Chinese. It's now thought that Chinese involvement in British real estate is allowing problematic amounts of leverage on Britain's economy.

Without current military parity we are likely to continue to see assymetric attacks on the Anglo-American project, and so far Britain and the US look like they are being totally outplayed.

Militarily too problems and cracks are occuring. Taiwan now apparently reckons it's losing its cold war with China - what's the US going to do, pull another few carriers out of its hat?

With Sino-Russian, and EU GPSs being launched we might be seeinng the begining of the end.

Jack for once i think Nicks got a point, the US and Israel may have very close links but they also have varying interests and ambitions.

no but i have met plenty of people on the trot left talk about Israel like it's a fascist state, who have no interest in the Israeli working class and think that they are so tied to zionism that they should be pushed into the sea by a united arab working class, or failing that they will even back Hamas etc.

The Palestine Solidarity campaign had some awful badges last May Day, a picture of the Israeli flag with a no smoking circle over it, i mean it's a bit fucking insensitive not to mention reductionist.

And also the hysterical calls for boycotts of everything of Israel piss me off, as if Israeli popular opinion can be changed by alienating it.

yeah but Jewishness being not just a religious thing but a signifier for much much more and the dovetailing of Israeli state and Judaism means that they have a tendency to get mixed up, and more importantly it shores up the hegemony of zionism in Israel itself.

I don't understand what people are saying - is American policy towards the Middle East effectively self-perpetuating?? They're establishing military bases in order to assert themselves and asserting themselves in order to establish military bases?? I'd go along with Anarcho Al's version of oil and the bases being only two of several factors.

The point about French, German and Russian investments in Saddam's Iraq was definitely one that was not stressed enough in 2003. Don't Russia have a shitload of investments in Iran too, hence their desperate attempts at mediation between Iran and the States??

Disliking the Israel goverment and its actions is in no way disliking Israelis. I know some people from Israel I dont hate them. I have a great dislike for Blair, dosen't mean I hate all English people, same with the Americans. Its bull to call people who oppose the Israeli goverment anti-semetic, reminds me of Ms Phillips who writes in the Daily Mail, you hate us 'coss we're Jewish. Maybe people are calling the Israel goverment fascist not to just cause offence to Jewish people, but to show up how some of Israel's actions are fascist in there nature.

I've met some crazy ideas of people who say they support Trotskyism, but never anti-semetism. I've only ever heared that from the right wingers.

I know what you mean, in a sense. But look I'm really no lover of the Israeli state or Zionism, and I know it's absolutely the reductionist argument of the pro-Israel lobby that all criticism of Israel is founded on anti-semitism.

But, and it's a big but, much of the left's criticism of Israel (which is attacked more than almost any other states with similar records on human rights) IS founded on anti-semitism. Revol makes the point that much of the Trot left seem to think Israel is a fascist state. In my experience a lot of lefties seem to liken it to a Nazi dictatorship (I've seen dozens of pamphlets which compare Israel to Nazi Germany, and the Nakhba and subsequent occupation and persecutions of the Palestinians to the Holocaust. However fancy the language, however much you reference things with quotations from Edward Said/Noam Chomsky/Norman Finkelstein it's just plain moronic. It's moronic in terms of strategy - Which dinstinct cultural/special interest group do you think has most sway over Israeli policy in the UK? How best could you immediately alienate them? - and it's moronic in that the events are in no way comparable. The Deir Yassin massacre was not the same as the planned execution of millions of Jews, Romanis leftists and dissidents in the concentration camps.).

And, to get back to the point about anti-semitism - I have often had experiences of lefties talking about Israel and the Jews as one and the same thing. I have personal experience of people refering to 'these fucking Jews this, these Jewish bastards that.'

The situation partly isn't helped because of the way lots of Palestinian solidarity campaigners (particularly from the Trot left) travel to the occupied West Bank for two weeks and come back utterly traumatised because they've done nothing but toured about the worst aspects of the occupation and they haven't had the time to adjust and see how ordinary people still manage under brutal conditions to go about their lives, love each other, live in communities and show each other solidarity.

If you spend all your time around arrogant young men with guns abusing people because of their ethnicity, and because they're arrogant young men with guns then of course you're going to be traumatised, and your associations with Israel, and, as a lot of these folk's politics are crap, that's effectively the same as 'the Jews', are going to be about arrogant young men with guns torturing folk.

They would do a lot better if instead of totally uncritically just puting themselves in the mind of trying to 'destroy Israel' or push it into the sea (Revol I feel is right about this leftist weirdness) they went there too and tried to understand why it produces these arrogant yound men with guns. And if they still feel that way they should probably take a wee look at what arrogant young men with guns from certain Christian countries have been up to recently.

I haven't seen any Trotskyists beign anti-semetic. This, to me has come mostly from the radical Islamic sections- not really the most pro-left people on the planet. Also people like Ms Phillips tend to use these terms of all Israel's opponents being anti-semetic. I did a long letter to her about Palestine and Israel but she never got back to me

powertotheimagination your tone comes across as really patronising, and you rpost effectively reads like you were challenging me, which in turns means that either 1) you think I am somehow mistaken or 2) I am lying. I don't believe you meant it that way but that's how it reads.

Well that's fine, but I am saying I have.

Nope. When I say that I'm talking about Trots, I am talking about Trots and at least one person who called themself an anarchist.

and lets not forget the trots that are buddying up with reactionary islamists, the fact they would ally themselves with anti semitics begs some questions.

i think wat nick said about the new imperialist conflicts emerging is very important, both the amount of powers looking for dominance is growing and the need for them to resort to military means due to the general world economic crisis is also getting deeper. Not to mention the spread of nuclear technology, the prospects don't look good.

Hi,

Just a few points on the chaos that's developing in the Middle East. First, as for American foreign policy, Alan is right to be confused...

Since the collapse of the Eastern bloc post '89 - and consequently the Western bloc - lid that contained the tensions within each bloc has been blown off, leading to the approach of 'every-man-for-himself' becoming the dominant tendency in relations between nations. The US bourgeoisie has increasingly found itself stuck in a contradiction. If they use military force as a show of strength this pushes back their major rivals (France, Germany, Russia, and Britian to a lesser extent) in the short term but at the price of further stoking up tensions and resentments in the long term. If they don't use military force then their major rivals see this as a sign of weakness and then seek to undermine the position of the US by stirring up trouble and trying to assert themselves, to strengthen their own positions.

As we say in the latest issue of WR,

This is the current situation with Iran - there is a false 'unity' amongst the great powers against Iran getting hold of nuclear weapons, but for years America's rivals have been fishing around in Iran trying to win influence with a regime that is seeking to assert itself as a regional power. Behind the great powers the lesser powers (Iran, Syria etc) have own their imperialist ambitions and are seeking to gain influence amongst the warring factions in Iraq. If the US doesn't establish military bases then another power will.

And this is one of the main points really: the war in Iraq is an imperialist war - fomented by the great imperialist powers. It is the great powers - all of them - who are responsible for unleashing the chaos, terrorism and bloodshed in Iraq. And this chaos and terrorism is rebounding back on the great powers: the suicide attacks of Madrid and London are directly linked to the war in Iraq. Proletarians in Spain and Britain were killed due to the military involvement of these countries in Iraq.

So what 'solutions' are there to this mess? Some think that the Iraqi resistance should be supported because 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' and the US will be weakened and decide to pull out. Some think that Iran should be supported if it were to annex part (or all) of Iraq for itself. But support for any side only results in the strengthening of one imperialist camp against another. Some think that the US should be backed because it is all that is standing in the way of a generalised Middle Eastern war.

Rather than rush to takes sides it is necessary to take a step back. The war in Iraq is just one link in a chain of conflicts that began with the first world war. Capitalism has drenched humanity in a sea of blood for nearly a century. It has nothing else to offer but war, barbarism, poverty and misery. It is, globally, at the international level, dragging humanity towards the abyss, to its total destruction. Let there be no mistake about this. The stakes are that high.

If the responsibility for the wars lies at the global level - at the level of the ENTIRE capitalist system - then there can be no LOCAL solutions. The working class in the Middle East, in Iraq and Iran, is too weak to deal the death blow to their local bourgeoisies. There are undoubtedly class struggles taking place in the Middle East, but they will only ever have any hope as part of an international wave of class struggles whose epicentre will be the very heart of capitalism. The solution to the war in the Middle East lies in the hands of the proletariat in of Western Europe and North America. These struggles are still in their early stages, but are developing nevertheless.

Beltov.

How am I being patronising? I'm saying how criticising Israel's actions dosen't mean criticisng Israeli citizens. Also i'm saying criticisng Israel isn't anti-semetic.

I would've thought the "superpowers" would be happy about this situation, what could be better? Iraqi killing each other instead of westerners. I hardy think America going to be too concern so as long the Iraqi Government don't collape and they still secure the oils wells in the south. Examples of this arms conflict and resource grabing are common place on the Africian continent.

In a less than a year time the Iraqi civilians will soon be taking over the role of peace keeping regardless if they are up to the job. A perfect solution as they are only going to get blown up and the good quailty troops i.e. US, UK are available to invade Iran.

Having said that Yesterday comments by the Iranian Government hasn't endeared themselves particlarly well. Iranians are lacking the charisma of Saddam Hussian.

thats exactly why you fucking plunker!

As if we need told this!

The argument however is that there are people on the left who come very close to anti semitism or atleast at as apologists. I've spoken to SWP members who have used the phrase "pushed into the sea" and who think working class Israelis are legitimate targets cos they won't break the link with zionism.

I think you take my posts to be criticising you. I need to work out what I say in my posts, i'm not trying to patronise anyone. I know there are members of the left who dislike all Israeli citizens, i'm also saying there isn't as well. Stating that there is can have the difference of saying there isn't to. May be really obvious, but I state the obvious in my posts so I dont just start jumping into it, if that comes across as patronising I may need to totally change my posting style but I don't really feel like it

On the antisemitism of the leftists, I agree with Nick and Revol 68. Nationalism of any kind has lost any progresive function and has become bound up with the very worst of anti-human impulses. It's impossible to find any form of nationalism that isn't racist. The Trotskyists - all of them -support the so-called nationalism of the oppressed; yesterday that normally meant aligning themselves with the Stalinist bureaucrats of the NLF, PFLP, etc; today it means apologising for Islamic fundamentalism - and thus for the most blatant anti-semitism. The SWP are more blatant about it than the rest of the Trots, but they all end up in the same 'anti-imperialist' sewer.

Zionism and anti-zionism are twin forms of nationalism and racism. From the internationalist point of view, both are equally reactionary.

So opposing Israeli foreign policy or part of it, means you are antisemetic. Or in asking this am I being patronising?

no, just ridicuously thick!